


Steal my heart (Hold my tongue)

by Skoll



Series: Norse god!Tony [1]
Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Also as close to fluff as I think Frostiron ever gets, Childhood Friends, Friends to Lovers, FrostIron - Freeform, M/M, Pre-Slash, Tony the Norse god, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 07:58:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/684645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skoll/pseuds/Skoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stark, the Norse god of Iron, isn't a particularly memorable figure in Earth's mythology.  Loki, on the other hand, has yet to meet an Aesir more memorable, or more infuriating.</p><p>(Or: In which I am sleep-deprived on Valentine's Day, and so self-indulgent Tony-the-Norse-god and semi-redeemable-Loki fic happened.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Steal my heart (Hold my tongue)

**Author's Note:**

> This story is both completely self-indulgent, and completely ridiculous. That said, I had too many Frostiron feels, and my other Frostiron fic won't be up and running until I get my hard drive back from data recovery, so this is what you get in the interim.
> 
> Also, a Norse goddess named Var is mentioned in this fic; she's my Norse god equivalent of Pepper. Considering that the Var of mythology was a goddess of contracts, from whom nothing could be hidden, it seemed appropriate. Just in case anyone who actually reads this was wondering who the hell Tony was running around with.
> 
> Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. Enjoy.

Stark, in a poor mood, is worse than one of the great wind storms on the plains of Alfheim; like a storm, he brings noise and chaos, yet Loki knows, at least, how to weather storms. He has never yet learned, in centuries of friendship, how to weather Stark.

Loki exhales gently after Stark's forceful entry to his workroom, and continues work at his spell, unwilling to ruin all his work simply to see to Stark's comfort. Yet, despite himself, he speaks as his fingers move. “Your father?” he asks, drawing on a wellspring of gentleness in himself that seems to exist only for Stark. Loki knows what it is to live in the shadow of a father, but at least Loki knows himself to be valued. Stark does not have even that.

Stark runs fingers through his hair, flickers of pain crossing his face when the multitude of metal contraptions laced across those fingers catch the fine strands. “My father,” he echoes, and laughs once, a forced, unhappy sound. “Is it not always my father?” It is not, in truth—any of those Stark loves can drive him to these moods, and Loki has seen Stark storm about for days when he and Var argue. More often than not, though, it is Stark's father; and so Loki stays silent.

“I'm sorry,” Stark says, after several more moments. “I know—,” he pauses, toys with one of his newer metal adornments, and then says, rapidly, “My burdens are not yours and you don't ask for them. Yet here I am, again. My apologies.” He turns, the fool of a man, with a shallow bow, to make for the door; spellwork or no, Loki cannot let this stand.

“Stark,” he says, and catches the man's arm, letting his magic spark and disappear in neglect. “Stop being a fool. If I did not care for your burdens, I would have said as much.” Despite himself, Loki feels his thumb circle, a small motion, against the skin of Stark's arm. Briefly, Stark goes perfectly still; then all the tension leaves him, and he sags into Loki's touch like an overburdened tree leans to the ground. “You know you are my oldest friend,” Loki says.

Stark looks at him, and smiles. One hand reaches to Loki's face, and Loki presses his cheek to the chill of Stark's ever-present metal before he can stop himself. “More than that,” Stark says, something searching in his gaze, and Loki thinks that perhaps now, after so long—

Behind Loki, the last, dying embers of his magic crackle, and Stark moves from Loki as though it was he who was burned rather than the air. “I interrupted,” Stark says.

Fighting back vexation, Loki says, somewhat moodily, “If you apologize again—”

“Loki,” Stark says, something strange and intense entangled in the name, and then all that is hidden behind a teasing note. “I was going to offer to help recover your hard work, actually, but if that gives offense I suppose I had better not.”

Loki shakes his head, amused and vexed at once as only Stark ever makes him. “If that will silence you at last, then by all means,” Loki says, and Stark laughs, and joins him.

…

His hands shake, though not from the chill as his brother's sycophants suppose. They taunt him for fragility in the face of a little ice, unknowing of the inherent irony there, and though Loki knows they speak only to fill in the silence left behind by his brother's banishment, he still has little patience for them now. He has no tolerance left for trivialities; and worst of all, Stark, who saw the whole of it, has not said a word since they returned from Jotunheim.

No. Loki is a monster, the terror-tale told to children of the Aesir; that is what is worst here.

Sif speaks, and Loki finds himself unable to stay. He offers no apologies for this, simply turns to leave, half-aware that Sif's words trail into silence as he passes. He walks, uncaring of his impoliteness, and goes on walking, unknowing of where he goes until suddenly there are hands on his shoulders and he is pressed into a room, and up against a wall.

A body wraps itself around his, and Loki tenses until he recognizes the sounds it makes: Stark. “Shh,” Stark is saying. “All will be well. Loki. Loki, there's nothing to fear.” Words of comfort, spoken softly. Loki does not understand why, and he is tired and shaking and cold and Stark continues to speak. Stark speaks on, words that blur together into a meaningless murmur in Loki's ear, blur into the heat of Stark's body pressed to his back, and—oh. Loki finds that there are tears on his face, that he is crying, and knows not when they started.

He tries to stop himself, and fails; tries to explain himself and gets as far as, “I am—,” before words fail him too.

“You are many things,” Stark says, finishing the words that Loki cannot. “Shall I name a few?” Loki waits, braced against whatever is to come, against the word 'monster' leaving Stark's lips. “For a start, you're my oldest friend,” Stark says. “You're the brightest mind of Asgard, if I'm not taken into account.” That arrogance, oddly enough, is comforting to Loki; it's familiar, this half-teasing argument over intellect. It feels more normal than anything else in past hours have, and that alone is a comfort. “You're also nothing different from what you were yesterday, or the day before, save that now we know slightly more about you.”

Loki turns in Stark's arms, needing to see his face, and says, “How can you—?” His voice breaks, as though he is barely past childhood again.

“Shh,” Stark says, “Loki. It's not like you to ask foolish questions. Even when we were children, you know I put more faith in you than in any story we were told.”

Loki cannot—

Loki kisses him.

Stark's lips are warm, Aesir warm against his, and Loki has wanted this for too long to restrain himself. He licks at Stark's lips, tastes skin and the faint tang of metal and Stark, and presses insistently into Stark's mouth. Stark answers his urgency in kind, straining to be closer, arms around Loki's waist and mouth open and wanting under Loki's; they do not fight for control because there is no control to be had, there is nothing but the taste and feel and want, and those they can share. One of them moans, and Loki cannot for the life of him name who—

He cannot.

He pulls away, and Stark looks all but stricken, hands grasping after Loki and catching only air. “My apologies,” Loki manages to gasp out, because this is no fault of Stark's, this is Loki—Loki does not deserve this, not now—

Loki is a monster.

He flees.

…

After, when worlds and all the places between separate that moment from the present, when Loki is allowing himself to be held in the mortal cage in penance for his defeat, Stark says, “I grant you, our timing was poor.”

It is a gift, then, that Thor has bound his mouth and made him silent. He would not know what to say to Stark now—Stark, his friend of centuries who nevertheless fought Loki on the Bifrost Bridge, and again when Thanos' compulsion led Loki to invade the mortal realm. Stark who knows what Loki is, truly, and has never once shown fear of him. Stark, whose last words to Loki before he slipped away from the bridge were strangled words of love; Stark, who grieved for him, and who looked at Loki like he was a blessing when he saw him alive on Midgard. Stark, who a moment after the relief crossed his face leveled metal and magic as weapons against Loki, who loves Loki enough to stand against him and yet not abandon him in disgust after the fight. Stark, who stands here now before him, bruised and tired and smiling.

“Still,” Stark continues, quietly now. “I'm very glad to see you alive, Loki. You cannot know—well.” He looks away, his mouth twisting unhappily. “Perhaps you do know, after all, though I'm uncertain as to whether that makes this better or worse. We always did have terrible luck, you and I.” 

Amusement quirks up his lips, and he says, “Even the Midgardians know that much, apparently. Did you know? I read the stories they once told of us—you should as well, they might amuse you. Apparently I am married to Var and you birthed a horse, amongst other lovely improbabilities, and we're the gods of Iron and Lies, respectively. Of course, we both met terrible bloody ends—” and as suddenly as it came, Stark's cheer fails him, words dying on his tongue. 

“You're not permitted to die,” he says, very quietly. “No bloody ends, no plummets off of bridges, no goading Odin Allfather into punishing you with death. I couldn't stand it a second time.” Stark rests one hand against the glass of Loki's prison, perhaps as an affectionate gesture or perhaps to support himself, Loki cannot tell. Stark looks tired enough in that moment that either is conceivable.

For the first time—not only since Thanos' compulsion took hold of him, but since he and Stark began this confusing dance centuries ago—everything that lies between them seems clear. 

Loki does the only thing he can. Slowly, he raises one hand and presses it to the glass, as close as he can come to touching Stark.

“Loki,” Stark says, and there it is again, that tangle of emotion all caught up in Loki's name, save that this time Loki can parse each and every emotion there. This time, he means to return them. He meets Stark's eyes and hopes his gaze says as much, and more.

“Well,” Stark says, after a long moment. “I did say our timing was terrible. At least this time we'll probably both survive to speak of it later.” The metal rings of his fingers click against the glass, and Stark lowers his head to rest on his hand. Loki steps closer to the glass, and pictures holding Stark against him, supporting his tired weight and feeling his chest rise and fall with every breath.

They stand a long while there, quietly, nearly touching.

**Author's Note:**

> This ridiculous thing now has a companion story. For reasons. If you got this far and enjoyed it, that companion is the next story in this series.


End file.
